§ Mr. Dudley Smithasked the Minister for Trade whether Her Majesty's Government are considering the introduction of measures to promote greater freedom of competition between European internal air-services.
§ Mr. SproatIf my hon. Friend is referring to the draft EEC inter-regional air services directive, I can assure him that we are doing all we can to promote a measure which will provide a more liberal regulatory framework for flights between regional airports in the Community. Useful progress towards agreement was made at the last Transport Council meeting in June, as I outlined in an answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) on 17 June 1982.—[Vol. 25, c.314.] We believe this directive would represent a useful step towards air transport liberalisation in Europe, even though the practical benefits to the United Kingdom would be limited by virtue of the wide range of route rights already available to our airlines under existing bilateral agreements.